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Apivar Thoughts?

So I see that it has been approved in my state and is available through Mann lake. Any thoughts on this? It seems to stay out of the comb, which is a plus. It also has a slow release product that allows you to keep the strip in the hive for weeks thus killing off multiple generations of varroa. Thus avoiding the hopp guard effect of replacing strips. It also seems to have little effect on bees with no effect on queens or laying. So does anybody have anything to add? I hear it has been available overseas for a while. Maybe we have some here who have used it?

Re: Apivar Thoughts?

I used Fluvalinate and it double crossed me, I used Coumaphous and it double crossed me. Apivar may well be a panacea for varroa control but I have my doubts it's that simple. I would have to declare my own personal section 18 to use it and I'm not about to declare an emergency until my bees tell me there is one.

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney

Re: Apivar Thoughts?

I like having alternative treatments tp cope w/ Varroa mites. Let's hope we don't lose this alternative again. Meaning, we lost the first available amitraz delivery device and now it appears as though Tactik has been taken off of the market. So, hopefully we can get some good use out of Apivar as part of our arsenal of treatments in an ipm program.

I couldn't tell that squarepeg changed anything. Not that it matters now. I just thought her own opiniuons could be more plainly obvious for those of us who don't simply open links because someone suggests we aught to. I did this time because I had trouble imagining that Randy Oliver wrote the things which I now understand squarepeg wrote himself.

Re: Apivar Thoughts?

Originally Posted by squarepeg

jim, do you do a spring treatment? if so, how do you time it?

also, do you decide on a hive by hive or a yard by yard basis, or do treat all hives the same?

Our spring mite counts have been low enough in recent years that we have opted not to treat at all in the spring and if we did it wouldn't be with Amitraz. The decision would most likely be to treat all or none since they often end up in large yards through the winter.

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney